By Dina Aldabbagh

Do you have eyes to see? To see what’s really going on? 

Sometimes in life we feel so confused. Words say one thing. Actions say another. People are complex and you sense one thing to be true but then a totally different thing happens. Then you begin to doubt yourself. Was I ever right? Did I read this completely wrong? May I suggest to you another possibility? You didn’t read it wrong, the picture is just bigger than you thought. 

Your intuition is not lying to you. You got a read on something — you did. So when something else happens that’s not in line with that read, instead of going back on the read and doubting yourself, expand your perspective. Take another look. If X is true, what does that mean has to be true for Y to happen? How can both X and Y be true at the same time? Then your mind starts thinking. 

People may tell you that’s being delusional — it’s making up stories — and it’s as simple as “blank” (fill in the belief). They may say, “He’s rude to you, it’s as simple as meaning he doesn’t like you.” But when you zoom out a little, when you stop making it about you, and realize that what people do is because of them. You can see a lot more possibilities that make sense. It takes nuance and distance to have perspective. If you think everything is about you, then of course you’ll think A + B = C. 

As human beings, whose minds have to file away and make meaning of thousands of things every day, we seek simplicity. We seek clear black and white division because it’s easy to make sense of. The grey is taxing. The grey asks you to think about things deeper and to also put your ego aside. The ego screams, “This is personal!” but it never is. We have a tendency to simplify things often in a way that means something negative. Because that’s easy. We gravitate towards, “They were rude… because they’re a mean person” rather than, “They were rude…because maybe they just got in a fight with someone, maybe they’re super stressed out, or maybe someone was just rude to them.” One puts a person in a box and is very easy to make sense of. The other offers perspective that recognizes that person may not always be like that and it may be a reaction — and that takes more restraint to recognize. One aligns with certainty and the other aligns with a “maybe.” “Maybe’s” are often regarded as unsafe to our nervous systems — we like clarity. Clarity feels safe.

Jumping to a definition of something is easy and feels safe. “There we go, I made sense of it.” But power is found when you can allow uncertainty to simmer, and reveal itself in time. This kind of power, however, is only accessible when you are powerful enough to control yourself. The cost of perspective is self-control. Our egos seek safety, and doubts and fears are the ego’s weapons of choice. The effort that complexity takes, the audacity one must have to assume it’s not personal, and the confidence required to trust your reads feel strenuous when not practiced. The mind has to allow room for uncertainty, which the ego doesn’t like. You have to have a general belief about the foundational goodness in others, and therefore not be quick to assume malice — allowing you to look at other possibilities. You have to feel some sense of self-worth and self-assurance to feel secure enough to believe it’s not personal. And most difficult of all, you have to trust yourself. 

We live in a world where most people don’t trust the very delicate compass in their gut. Intuition is extremely sensitive and its stance develops quickly, as more evidence is brought to it. Therefore people find safety in giving baseline definitions to things to make sense of the world, because to believe that you can trust every minor intuition hit takes a huge amount of self-security. Trusting yourself and having conviction in your belief takes a lot out of you if that muscle has not been previously trained. Once you get the hang of it, it feels like the most natural thing in the world, but at first — when you have no evidence to go off of that you’re right — you take the huge risk of being wrong, feeling like a fool, and potentially never wanting to trust yourself again. 

As such, definitive meanings help provide security to people. ‘X action means Y definition’ gives us a sense of stability. It allows the mind to file things away with ease, rather than need to read into everything. To look at every single nuance and sign and trust yourself as the interpreter of it all can feel like standing on a shaky plane. What’s the basis of your belief? There’s no evidence yet, how can you stand on that?

While it’s less taxing and feels safer to trust in the clear cut, black and white meanings of things, it’s also extremely limiting. You close yourself off from thing after thing because you get an intuition hit, and if it’s not immediately proven true, you believe you were wrong. You close yourself off to the possibility of it. It may seem illogical to believe a story that’s not the loudest one in the room, but it’s what takes you the furthest. The truth I’ve learned is: we’re not wrong. Those minor reads — the language someone uses, the tone of their voice, a certain action being done — those do point to something bigger. But we have to understand: people are complex. There are reasons behind why people act the way they do, and more often than not, they are buried deep beneath the surface — and not easily visible.

When you can recognize the potential reasons someone may be doing a certain thing, you empower yourself. First, you realize it’s not personal — it’s not about you. Therefore you realize you don’t have to do anything about it. Then, you also give liberty to the circumstances to change. 

What we don’t often recognize is that our definitions of things give them definiteness. Our beliefs around things literally define how they behave in the future. If you hold the belief that someone is rude, you will treat them like they were a rude person, solidifying their identity as that. The key is: because you are treating them like that, they will assume that identity — which is that of a person you don’t like. They will be a person you don’t like. As in, they will perform that identity — because it’s difficult to not act in response to others. It takes a lot more effort to behave based on your own principles, character, and personality than it does to react to those around you. It’s the difference between treating people based on who you are and treating them based on who they are. Most people will do the latter. Most react, rather than forge. Because to be the one to lead the circumstances rather than allow the circumstances to lead them takes a lot more work within — it takes composure, self-assurance, inner peace, confidence, and a very strong sense of identity. 

It’s very easy to believe that the circumstances are just happening and you’re at their mercy, but the more difficult truth to reconcile with is that you guide the circumstances infinitely more. Because it takes accountability. You have to accept the responsibility that your life is the result of you. Of course, there will be things out of our control, but this is where your reaction sways what happens down the line. When something happens, whatever meaning you give it does affect what happens in the future.

If your friend says they can’t pick you up because you’re out of the way and you assume that’s because they don’t care about you, then you will treat them like they are an unloving person. However if your friend says they can’t pick you up and you give it the meaning that maybe they are struggling on money and don’t want to spend the gas or even that they’re really stressed and barely can get themselves to go to this event, so they don’t have the time to go pick up and drop you off as well, then you’ll treat this friend with care. You’ll respond to this moment with compassion rather than judgement, and that will likely result in the friendship getting even closer — because we feel safe with people who we don’t have to perform perfection for. If your friend sees, “Hey, I don’t have to always give to this person in order for them to be good to me” then you will create a more loving relationship, rather than a more distant one.

This is the effect of looking again. Take another look. You read certain things about a situation or a person based off of real signals. Just because things are seemingly looking like another thing, doesn’t mean you weren’t right. It often just means that the loop hasn’t fully closed. 

“The sky is blue and the grass is green. Even when it’s nighttime or when there are clouds, I know the sky is blue. Even with snow on the ground, I know the grass is green.” Don’t be so easily fooled by appearances. They will scream at you many different things, but staying rooted in what you know to be true is all the difference. Your intuition is accurate, trust it. It will always point you to the true north. And when things seem to be appearing another way — one that doesn’t make sense with your previous reads — don’t take that as evidence to the contrary, but rather as more evidence to form the fuller story. 

It’s rarely, “I was wrong,” it’s: “I didn’t see this aspect of the truth.” The story deepens with more evidence, and when things seem to be contradictory, that is just a moment in time where you are called to think bigger — to have more perspective. 

Don’t be so easily fooled by appearances, the sky is still blue. Sometimes you don’t have the full picture in front of you — you may not see it, but you can see through it.